Tracker Gets Tagged (Desierto)
Are you one of those “can’t watch a movie with dog deaths” people? Then avoid Jonás Cuarón’s Desierto like the plague. It depicts one of the most graphic animal deaths I’ve ever seen on camera, and worse off, it’s a much nastier fate than any human character suffers.
Jeffrey Dean Morgan’s pup Tracker was just following orders given by its border-huntin’ owner, and is punished brutally by Gael García Bernal. Like, death scene with thorny bramble and a flare gun. My problems with the film aside, it’s the kind of overkill death that stops a movie in its tracks, no matter how “dramatic” said death can be.
Playing Doctor (Southbound)
David Bruckner’s segment “The Accident” is the stand-out tale of Southbound, where a man (played by Mather Zickel) attempts to save the young woman he just injured. Her body, mangled and bloody, lays limp in his arms as he takes orders from a 911 voice. He’s led to an abandoned hospital where the girl is plopped on an operating table – only to have one of her legs just snap. The bone dangles at a perfect right angle, held thinly by strained ligaments and ripping flesh. It is – in a matter of words – quite the gruesome sight. And if you think it stops there? Kudos, Bruckner. Way to bring the pain.